According to Sven Voelker's book Go Faster, it was American driver Briggs Cunningham who ushered in the era of the "go-faster stripe" when he put two of them on his white Le Mans racer in the fifties. The next year, according to Voelker, stripes were everywhere, and so began the era of wild and memorable race-car liveries that would peak in the 70s and 80s.

The new Vauxhall Astra – or something or someone claiming to be the new Vauxhall Astra – has co-written a book on driving manners. The other co-writer is Debrett's, an English version of Miss Manners except that Debrett's has been dispensing etiquette advice for more than 200 years, long before Miss Manners' was even a zygote.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has decided to apply the same forward thinking to its web site it has to its information. Borrowing ideas from the iTunes Store and Amazon, the SAE has revamped its bookstore for easier navigation and added an eBook store for engineers on the go.

England's Education Secretary Alan Johnson has published a list of tomes intended to catch the interest of teenage boys. Monies have been set aside so that schools can take their pick of 20 titles from the 160 book list, and house those selections in their libraries. Absent from the register are works considered classic, such as Dickens, Shakespeare, or others from literary history. High on the new list is "I Know You Got Soul" by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson's book, rather than being to